Part 8

Over the next nine months, Leon Brinks-Matt and Pinky Goose were inseparable. Once, twice, sometimes three times a day, they would go over the older man’s plans to rob the Nationwide Building Society in his own hometown. The scheme was so simplistic, it was both easy for Pinky to understand and had absolutely no chance of success. In broad daylight, the two men would ‘bum rush’ (Brinks-Matts’ terminology) the main branch and demand all the cash they had in the place. While Brinks-Matt held a gun on the staff members and any customers who might try and be have-a-go heroes (again, his own terminology), Pinky would use his massive wingspan to grab enough cash to set the two men up for the next two or three years.

“Spain’ll be the best place for us after that.”

“But I haven’t even got a passport.”

“Don’t stress yourself in that regard, Goose. If you pull this job off, I’ll have enough work to make you a very rich man indeed. Stick with me, son. I’ll cover you in diamonds.”

On a day-to-day basis in prison, the other inmates soon learned that Pinky had the protection of the most feared man interned there. Any initial jibes regarding his physical abnormality pretty much died a still birth. Though one inmate, a certain Chris Christian, got a nasty nighttime visitation from two guards under Brinks-Matt’s pay, pool balls in sports socks, for calling Pinky “the human orangutan,” and spent the next nine weeks recovering in the infirmary.

“The long-armed fella is untouchable,” the guard hissed into the writhing and bleeding Chris Christian’s ear. “You got that?”

Aside from light kitchen duties, where Pinky drew on all his experience in the food factory, washing, drying, and stacking dishes far faster than your average domestic dishwasher appliance ever could, he spent most of his time playing winner-stays-on table tennis in the recreation room. Reliving another part of his more youthful past as a tennis player, Pinky simply couldn’t be beaten. Not even the niftiest and most powerful of table tennis-playing inmates were a match for a man who could quite literally retrieve and smash back a ball that was all of ten or twelve feet wide of the table. One bank holiday, when the inmates were given special privileges, he won 114 consecutive matches before lights-out was called.

Time in prison, therefore, was not particularly challenging or unpleasant for Pinky Goose. He got his head down and served out his term, even enjoying the odd semi-drunken night in Brinks-Matt’s cell when he sneaked in a bottle of Rémy Martin.

“Get used to that, Goose. Champagne cognac. That’s all we’ll be drinking once we get down to Spain.”

Only one unedifying event of note blighted Pinky’s nine months in the clink: an unexpected visit from Jeanette Green. Thinking the guard had made a mistake when he called out his name, Pinky was on the point of refusing to report to the Visitors’ Room.

“It’s just some young lady,” said the guard on duty. “Respectable sort. I’m sure she won’t bite.”

When he saw Jeanette sitting at a table by a barred, frosted window that emitted negligible light, a deep sense of shame swept over Pinky. Deep down, he knew he’d wronged a good, warm-hearted, kindly soul, one of the few people in life who had really, truly liked him for who he really, truly was. By the time he’d reached her table, the tears were streaming down his cheeks, and he wouldn’t have been able to speak, even if you held two guns to his head.

“Hello, Pinky.” She smiled widely. “Hope you don’t mind me popping in to see you?”

He shook his head and slid down into the chair facing her, resting the elbows of those awkward, oversized arms on the chair; his hands splayed across the table.

“You look a bit better than when I last saw you. Hope it isn’t too bad in here?”

He shook his head for a second time.

“Everyone at the supermarket sends you their best. Truth be told, we miss having you around. Average checkout queue times have increased by sixteen-and-a-half per cent since you left. Mr. Burke is tearing his hair out.”

Through his slowly subsiding tears, Pinky let out a soft, murmury chuckle.

“But the real reason I came today was to let you know something. The council have let your old flat out to someone else, you see. When you get out, there’ll always be a place for you at mine. Stay as long as you want. Just until you get yourself back on your feet. And who knows? Maybe you’d like to return to your old job at the supermarket?”